Magical Unicorn Birthday Party

When my daughter first asked for a unicorn themed birthday party for her fourth birthday I was initially stumped, we had just thrown a construction themed birthday party for our two year old little boy Gabriel which seemed quite easy compared to unicorns (I will blog his party next).  I mentioned it to a few friends and one of my friends found a unicorn pinata for $15 and after that and a lot of surfing online for ideas (mostly here) the creative juices began to flow.  

Unicorn horns

I was also really inspired by the blogs from other mums around the globe that that went to extraordinary lengths to throw unbelievable parties for their children.  Some spending what must be a fortune but others doing amazing things on a budget.  Our party was going to have to be on a budget but I did think I wanted to achieve many of the things I had seen online but as cheap as possible.

Firstly I found the idea of making unicorn horns for the children (and adults if so desired).  I looked for the right paper  but it would have cost upwards of $20 so in the end I used paper that I had in my craft draw and sprinkled glitter on them in different colors; blue, white and pink to cater for different tastes, the cost was $5 for the elastic and $4 for the glitter but I had heaps left over that I used as fairy dust at the party. I made an origami box to hold the fairy dust.

The picture that was sent out on  Facebook

A huge saving was made with the invitations.  I took a picture of my daughter Ebonii wearing one of the unicorn horns and sent out invites on Facebook. I guess I am lucky that nearly everybody (except my dad, so I rang him) who   I wanted to invite is on Facebook but it saved us heaps (cost nothing actually) and it is easy for people to reply.

My decoration ideas started to take shape, I wanted to turn our backyard into an enchanted garden.  But what was I going to do with our ugly clothes line?  

One of my favorite books from my 

child- hood was the The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton which is where the idea of turning the clothes line into an enchanted tree came from.  In my mind unicorns equal magical so India (my creative 15 year old daughter) and myself brain stormed everything magical.  The clothes line was tricky and I ended up sacrificing one of my king size white flat sheets to cover the top. I used a bit of green dye (I couldn't find green clothes dye in the shops so I used food dye that I had in my cupboard) to make it look tree like and cut up a green table cloth that I brought at the second hand shop for $2 to look like leaves.  If I had of had money I would have brought green hessian to cover the top of the clothesline but I used what I had rather than spending money that I didn't have. Still using what I had I made origami flowers to hang on the line it is just a very simple Lily and I can now fold this in my sleep I think. Cheap scrap-booking paper is perfect because it is square and comes in so many different colors and patterns, and then for vines I cut leaves out of different shades and patterns of green and stapled them to curling ribbon to make hanging vines, I used the scraps as weights at the bottom of the vines. The ribbon costs $2 for a huge roll at Chickenfeed and I already had this in quite few shades of pink and I still have heaps left.  Ebonii even made her own vines to hang and Gabriel practiced his cutting skills for this so it was a good craft activity with the kids.

These flowers made a great take home treat from the party as well as a wonderful
decoration that didn't take up as much time as you would think.

The banner for the party was made out of newspaper, the $2 large curling ribbon that I used for the vines, gold paint, glitter and letters cut out from pink glitter paper that cost me $4.  It said Happy Birthday Ebonii and I just folded one sheet into a triangle and painted the front gold and sprinkled on gold glitter (I already had some left over from a previous party but I think it was $5 to buy from spotlight).  The triangles were stapled onto the curling ribbon.

The unicorn crossing was a last minute idea that we added for fun on the morning of the party.  We used a bit of cardboard from the boxes of Ebonii's birthday presents, India cut out a picture that I had drawn a couple of weeks ago of a Unicorn and stuck it on after coloring it in black and we drew a zebra crossing in rainbow colors across the footpath, Kelly (aka dad) wired it to a post.  It was also his idea for the unicorn crossing to be in rainbow colors.

Other decorations included paper mache dragon flies and a ladybug, which awere just made out of cardboard, newspaper, PVA glue and paint.  Ebonii had butterflies in her room that I took out side and hung about.  The large butterfly was $5 from Chickenfeed. India wrote 'Unicorn Land' on the blackboard and we strung rainbow colored streamers about.  Ebonii and I painted a rainbow on cardboard ($1 a sheet), she painted one side (with some assistance) and I painted the other. The little toadstools were cut out of a box left over from Christmas presents and painted red and white, I taped tent pegs onto the back of them and stuck them into the ground.  The sunflowers and daisies in the backyard certainly helped to add to the effect as did the bubble machine we borrowed from a friend.

So, food isn't my strong point but I just kept with the unicorn theme. I made unicorn cupcakes, this was one cupcake packet mix and I covered a mini ice-cream cone with icing and hundreds and thousands.

One of our family favorites that have been at parties for years made by my Nan (who has since handed over the reigns to my mum) is cream horns, so I ordered these from my mum.

I brought rainbow colored musk sticks for $2 a packet, Wizz Fizz cones and rainbow straws.  I made a big platter of fruit, watermelon and strawberries.

Another idea I got off the internet was printed labels for water bottles for everyone.  We found an image on the computer and India created the labels.  She even found unicorn font on the computer.

"Fresh waters from the springs of Unicorn Land to bring you eternal health and power beyond your wildest dreams."

I made labels and used a stamp I had found for $2.

My mum brought the flowers from her wonderful garden and the letter E was brought for $3 and painted.

The idea for the cake came from rainbow layered smash cakes I had seen online.  Again it is just two packet mixes dyed different colours and was easy to the point even I could do it.  As you may have guessed my unicorn obsessed little girl got many unicorn presents for her party and the cake topper was a unicorn from the My Little Pony collection that we gave to her for her birthday.

The games and activities for the party were Pass the Parcel and Pin the Unicorn Horn on the Unicorn (brought on ebay for $6, it was a bit smaller than I had hoped but it was one less think I had to make) and a Unicorn Pinata. We also printed out coloring pages from the internet for the children to color in. We also had our own Jumping Castle which we set up in the backyard for the children to play on.

As a take home gift I dipped waffle cones in white chocolate and sprinkles and filled them with lollies in a clear plastic bag tied with ribbon. Also the children that wanted (some boys refused) could choose a flower off the Enchanted Tree.

All in all it was a great success. Heaps of hard work and commitment was involved but I loved it and miss it now that it is over. I had heaps of additional ideas that I would have done if I had more time and more money, but we didn't and it didn't really matter if it wasn't perfectly perfect; it was fun.  Ebonii loved it, although she did announce later that night that now that she was four she was probably too old for Unicorns, but like I told her I don't think you are ever too old for unicorns.

Ebonii with her cousins Mia and Aynee